Browse Notices

The Dutchess and the Duke with Greg Ashley

It takes a special audio engineer to embark on tour with a band. But
it takes an especially talented one to actually play drums in the band,
as Greg Ashley is doing for the Dutchess and the Duke. The pairing is
perfect: Ashley, leader of Oakland, Calif., psych/folk outfit Gris
Gris, recorded the Seattle duo's sophomore release, October's
Sunset/Sunrise (Hardly Art), in his Bay Area studio, and
his group's warm, low-lighted analog halo lends it an autumnal glow.
Jesse Lortz and Kimberly Morrison's 2008 debut, She's the
Dutchess, He's the Duke, is a sneering salute to "Paint It
Black"-era Rolling Stones, but here they take the same basic
ingredients — guitars, tambourines, guy/girl harmonies that
coalesce like coffee and cream — and add subtly dramatic keys and
strings that swell and crash in all the right places. Ashley opens with
solo material; joining him behind Lortz and Morrison are guitarists
Jared Gummere and Melissa Elias of Chicago garage-rockers the Ponys.
Here's hoping any encore is a medley. Tickets $5. — Noah
Bonaparte Pais